Last week 49/2006

Advent began. The Czech government announced it would open the job market for citizens from new EU member states Romania and Bulgaria. Přemysl Sobotka from the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) was re-elected as president of the Senate. “We Czechs believe beer is a component of food,” pronounced Finance Minister Vlastimil Tlustý after the Czech Republic was the only country in the European Union which vetoed raising the excise tax on beer, a hike that would have increased the domestic price of beer by less than one heller.

The Supreme Audit Office calculated that 4.4 billion crowns in subsidies were indiscriminately sent to regions in the last three years. Reconstruction of a devastated, yet architecturally exceptional spa building in Kyselka began. Artistic directors, dramaturgs, and a number of actors and directors from the National Theatre protested against the approach of the Culture Ministry and the theatre’s recently implanted director Jan Mrzena, which they believe is leading to the theatre’s destabilization. Alternativa festival began in Prague. The National Museum acquired the building that used to house the Federal Assembly and later served as the headquarters of Radio Free Europe. Meteorologists announced that this fall was the warmest since 1961. The media reported that the Pope called for Turkey’s admission to the European Union. Václav Klaus appointed Vladimír Tomšík and Mojmír Hampl, who had to leave Czech Consolidation Agency recently for failing to keep tabs on financial flows, to the Czech National Bank’s prestigious Banking Council. “If Czechs keep eating like they do now and keep moving as little as they do now, sixty years from now they will all be obese and struggle with health problems caused by excess kilograms,” informed a report from the Czech Society for the Study of Obesity. The average monthly wage in the Czech Republic was calculated at CZK 19,968. U.S. President George Bush announced he would arrange to lift the visa requirements for citizens of new EU member states, thus even the Czech Republic. A temperature inversion in northwestern Bohemia disrupted television reception. Pavel Bém was re-elected Mayor of Prague and Petra Buzková announced she did not want to serve in the Municipal Assembly to which she was elected. Agrodružstvo Jevišovice declared its intention to build a crocodile farm where up to 250 Nile crocodiles would be killed a year to make handbags. The government cut a deal with Nomura to end its international arbitration against the Czech state in exchange for promising the bankers impunity for their shady doings in Investiční a poštovní banka, which they drove to bankruptcy. Mayors of communities in the Jeseník Mountains expressed extraordinary interest in building new inns and hotels. Twenty-three less people died on roadways this November than last. “I was surprised that the birth rate in the Czech Republic is so critically low,” renowned demographer Jean-Claude Chesnaise said at a lecture in Prague, adding that it would probably never surge enough to maintain the population. The crown strengthened considerably, rallying to 21.05 against the dollar. According to patients, the best Czech hospital is Sisters of Mercy of St. Karel Boromejský Hospital in Prague. The film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer started screening. The smell of hot mulled wine wafted through towns. It surfaced that almost forty companies want to go on strike because of a perceived lack of transparency in how contracts from the state-owned forest management company Lesy České republiky are doled out. The Communists failed to push through Parliament a proposal that would have prohibited the government from continuing talks with the United States on the possibility of locating a U.S. anti-missile base in the Czech Republic. The eminent company Skype, which specializes in offering telephoning via the Internet, announced it would locate its development base in Prague. Two Czech soldiers from a unit that recently returned from a mission in Afghanistan received American Bronze Stars for fighting the Taliban. Media reported that the number of car collisions with wild boars is on the rise. “In 1989, Czechs killed 912,000 pigs at home. Last year, there were just over 300,000 and this year just 190,000, so some 30,000 tons of live weight. With pig killings, which were an inherent part of the Czech Republic’s local color, it’s all going downhill,” observed the daily 24 hodin. The government failed to push through Parliament its proposal to postpone implementation of the new Labor Code. David Koller’s new album, Nic není nastálo (Nothing Is Forever), has already become a Gold Record. Weapons became more popular – every twentieth resident owns one. Vodafone failed to keep up with processing orders for false reindeer. Media reported that the cost of electricity would rise by 8 percent in January.